Software can be developed in distributed environments. For example, multiple developers can develop source code. The developers can be dispersed throughout a location, a region, or world-wide. Distributed development of software products includes a range of challenges. An example challenge is following the mutual development progress of individual developers that are members of a development team.
Version Control Systems (VCSs) are implemented to support distributed development of software. Such systems, however, focus on text changes. For example, a VCS can manage changes based on text files, but the textual information is independent of the semantics of the programming language of the source code. Consequently, although the textual information alerts developers to changes, the developers have to further investigate to be made fully aware of the changes.